


Red and White

by breathtaken



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Era, Episode: s01e04 The Good Soldier, Gen, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/breathtaken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He draws his faith from looking up at the walkway where Tréville always seems to be standing these days, and reminds himself that he is not Marsac.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red and White

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo fill: whipping/flogging.
> 
> In which I finally 'do' Savoy. This one’s for the anon who prompted me for Aramis & Tréville back in about March. Sorry it took so long!

Once Marsac is dead it rains for five days, falling in sheets and robbing everything around of its colour, turning streets into streams and dripping ceaselessly from the eaves of buildings, from every hat and cloak, soaking through; and Aramis finds himself alone every night, on his knees by the bed with his face raised to Heaven and praying for it not to stop, to keep cascading down on him day after day so he has something else to blame for his silence and sluggishness, the excess of phlegm weighing heavy on the lungs, the way he can’t help shivering as if to shake the very flesh from his bones.

_Walking over your grave._

How often do they all tread upon the dead without even knowing it? The graveyards overflowing, the sick burned to ashes, bodies swallowed up by the catacombs of Paris. He dreams of the rain washing away packed-down earth to reveal the bones beneath their feet, feels every ridge through his thinning soles, hears the cracks.

He stops praying after that.

Instead, he draws his faith from looking up at the walkway where Tréville always seems to be standing these days, and reminds himself that he is not Marsac, and that even Marsac had not been himself for years.

He will always choose Tréville. He has been tested and proved; and when the others take their leave he finds a pretext to stay, leaning against a wall beneath an overhang and watching the drops falling one by one. The rain is loud, at least, and stops him from thinking too hard about what he’s trying to avoid: the muffled silence of his rooms like the morning after snowfall, and outside, the living slowly washing away.

When Tréville finds him he realises that night has almost fully fallen without him noticing; though he’d know that figure anywhere, little more than a silhouette against the grey dusk.

“Aramis,” Tréville says, sounding unsurprised, “my office,” and Aramis’ feet are leading him obediently along before he’s even decided to follow.

Tréville does not go to sit behind his desk, but leans against the front edge of it, folding his arms. “At ease,” he says, and simply waits; and Aramis knows all too well what he’s doing – he does – but all his usual spirit seems to have been washed away and left him out of balance, and he can’t find his way to resisting any more.

“We ride on the backs of the dead,” he hears himself say – and it’s madness, to _Tréville_ of all people, but he suddenly feels as if it’s been building inside him for days, bloating him, and it needs to come out or he’ll burst.

“Of course,” Tréville agrees – too readily, “that’s what progress is. The passing of the baton, so to speak. Else we would all still be savages.” He shifts his weight, hands coming down to grip the edges of the desk; and the part of Aramis that isn’t gripped by black bile envies him his ease, his plain conviction.

At least he doesn’t ask what Aramis really means. Aramis isn’t sure he knows himself.

“Besides. The dead are with God, they have no need of anything from us.”

Tréville’s an educated man, and Aramis can’t deny the truth of his words, though it doesn’t stop him shivering; inside with the fire burning in the grate it seems to be even worse than it was, full-body shudders that can’t escape Tréville’s notice, though there’s not quite enough vitality in him to care.

“When Marsac shot at me, the shot went a full foot wide,” Tréville says suddenly – baldly, and Aramis supposes he never has been one to dissemble. “From a distance of five yards.” One eyebrow raises. “You served with him.”

 _A year_ , Aramis thinks; though everything’s muted and he still doesn’t _feel_ , only remembers the urgent flickering of Marsac’s face, the grey-black weight of the hands on his shoulders, and him not understanding.

The sudden pressure of Tréville’s hand on his forearm jolts his attention back to the room; and Aramis realises he’s sweating under all his layers, though he still couldn’t say he’s warm.

“I never disciplined you for striking me,” Tréville says – and _that_ has an effect, Aramis’ shame at the memory immediate, rising in him like steam from soil.

“Go into the back room, and bring me the cat that’s hanging second from the left.”

“Captain,” Aramis replies promptly, turning sharply on his heel, something like relief washing through him.

Never again will he doubt that Tréville does anything other than what’s best for his men; and so he knows even before he sees this particular cat – notes its lack of barbs and the thickness of the leather – that it will not scar; and as he hefts it assessingly in his hand he can tell that though it should leave welts for a few days it will not break the skin, that it will hurt in precisely the way he welcomes.

Not at all what he deserves for his conduct, but exactly what he _needs_ – and it’s a sign of his captain’s greatness that somehow, he has always known.

The wood of Tréville’s desk is warm under his hands, and he realises he’s bracing himself in the same places Tréville was gripping only minutes before. His palms are the only part of his body yet warming as he leans over, stripped to the waist, sweat cooling rapidly on his torso as he tucks his head down against his chest, waiting for it to begin.

The strokes, when they come, are the first _hot_ things he’s felt in days, licking swift across his shoulder blades like sharp tongues of fire – gold, like Tréville himself is as he works up a  practised rhythm on Aramis’ back, every stroke falling just the same, shining brassy gold against the blue.

Marsac didn’t shine when he came back. Even though the day was hot, his eyes were iced over in a way that Aramis knew at once – that he had seen enough times in the mirror those first few weeks, only thawing when summer came.

Marsac used to be red to him, a vivid scarlet at once both bright and cruel; and they had fallen down together in the poppy fields of Blavet once the battle was finally done, laughing simply because they still lived, and Aramis had caught his eye amongst the sea of flowers bobbing in the breeze and wished they could both stay there forever.

That’s how he remembers him at last, that young man among the poppies with his sword still scarlet-tipped; and though Aramis knows Tréville won’t let him bleed he suddenly yearns to, the redness in him calling across the leagues, across the years.

When Marsac falls from his mind it’s as a dream upon waking; the pain is a jealous lover, he muses, and will not tolerate another’s place in his heart. It’s cleansing somehow, purifying, building and spreading through his body until it’s all he knows, flushing him gold-white clear, like absolution.

“You’re done,” he hears Tréville say, and he’s white once more; everything blank, all the colours that have stained him fading like linen under a housewife’s fingers. He will take communion tonight, he decides as he carefully stands, rolling his shoulders and feeling the skin of them sing, raising his face to gaze wet-eyed at the crucifix on the wall.  

The salve Tréville rubs on his welts seems to both cool and warm in turn, and only stings a little, imbued with a scent that’s fresh and makes him think of summer mornings, and at the touch of those beloved hands Aramis glows newly white: white as the clouds that day in Blavet, him and Marsac lying down with the earth at their backs and the sun on their smiling faces, and nothing but poppies all around.

**Author's Note:**

> Endnote: [The Battle of Blavet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blavet) was actually January 1625; please forgive the season-fudging, but I wanted to avoid any winter parallels.


End file.
